1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to drill-in fluids used in oil and gas drilling and, in particular, to a laboratory method for evaluating the durability of sized bridging materials used in the formulation of drill-in fluid to eliminate or minimize formation damage.
2. Brief Description of Related Art
A drill-in fluid is a special type of fluid formulated for oil and gas drilling. The drill-in fluid is pumped into a borehole while drilling through porous and permeable subsurface rock formations that store and transmit oil and gas, i.e., a reservoir. The drill-in fluid contains solid particles known as bridging materials to prevent fluid loss from the borehole to the reservoir by building a “filter cake” for preventing fluid loss into the reservoir.
Bridging materials are solid particles, typically composed of calcium carbonate (CaCO3), dolomite, or marble, and are designed to “bridge” across the pore throat or fractures in the vicinity of the borehole wall. Bridging materials can produce a low-permeability mud-cake on the borehole wall to minimize fluid leak-off, eliminate spurt loss, arrest migration of fine particles (“fines”) into the reservoir or formation, prevent mud-cake deposition into the formation, and inhibit near-wellbore formation damage. The fluid formulation containing the bridging materials, which may be referred to as a “mud,” can be tailored to specific geological applications by tailoring the size range of the bridging materials to achieve a desired fluid density and bridging ability. For example, one can select bridging materials manufactured to certain sizes (coarse, medium, fine, and very fine) to achieve a particular size-distribution scheme corresponding to the pore throat sizes of a target reservoir.
The effectiveness of bridging materials depends on their structural durability, as they are subject to damage due to extreme conditions during the drilling operation (i.e., “downhole conditions”). For example, bridging materials can disintegrate, decompose, and disperse as a result of physical interactions with a drill bit, tool joint, reamer, stabilizer, mud motor stator and blades, and bent drill string. When the bridging materials decompose into smaller and finer particles, the intended distribution scheme is lost, destroying the desired fluid properties and bridging abilities. For example, there can be a dramatic change in the particle size distribution curve.
The smaller, finer particles resulting from the decomposition of bridging materials can also harm the drilling operation. For example, the loss of the drilling fluid's bridging ability may result in the migration of drilling fluids into the reservoir. And after migrating into the formation, the bridging materials, including the fine particles created when bridging materials decompose, can create deposits that damage the reservoir and significantly reduce the production capability of a well. Although properly sized bridging materials are very useful in plugging and sealing fractures and openings in a borehole wall to create a tight and low-permeability mud-cake, failure to maintain the intended size distribution while drilling may be a severe cause of near-wellbore formation damage.
The importance of using of a particular particle size distribution of bridging materials that is compatible to the pore throat size distribution of the target reservoir is well known to the industry. The industry is also aware of the importance of preserving the particle size distribution (“PSD”) while drilling to get the maximum benefit of the drill-in fluid. However, there is no industry method or standard test method to monitor the PSD while drilling or to screen and evaluate different bridging materials as a part of quality control/assurance procedures or as part of selecting optimal bridging materials (i.e., materials with an optimal durability index). Horton et al. (Horton, R. L., Dobson, J. W. Jr., Tresco, K. O., Knox, D. A., Green, T. C. and Foxenberg, W. E. (2001), Enhanced Well Productivity Potential from a New High-Density Reservoir Drill-in Fluid, AADE 01-NC-OH-47) described the importance of using an optimum amount of sized bridging materials and an optimum PSD in drilling and drill-in fluids to control the thickness, porosity, and permeability of deposited mudcake, reduce the loss of mud filtrate into the near wellbore formation, and facilitate the effective cleaning of the mudcake from the borehole wall.
Siddiqui et al. (Siddiqui, M. A., Al-Ansari, A. A., Al-Afaleg, N. I., Al-Anazi, H. A., Hembling, D. E., and Bataweel, M. A. (2006), Drill-in Fluids for Multi-lateral MRC Wells in carbonate Reservoir—PSD Optimization and Best Practices Lead to High Productivity: A case Study; 2006 SPE Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Conf. & Exhb., Adelaide, Australia, 11-13 September, SPE #101169) described less-damaging water-based drill-in fluids for use in multilateral maximum reservoir contact wells. The authors optimized the particle size distribution using fine and medium-sized particles of calcium carbonate with fairly fixed median value to reduce formation damage caused by fines and polymer plugging. According to their study, the optimum ratio of fine to medium-sized calcium carbonate was 35:65 (8:15 ppb fine:medium) in 23 ppb bridging material loaded drill-in fluid. Tests conducted using a reservoir core and a dynamic mud flow loop at stimulated reservoir conditions resulted in 20% loss in return permeability in the presence of the size optimized drill-in fluid. The use of this size optimized drill-in fluid enhanced the well productivity significantly. The authors also emphasized the need for maintaining the designated particle size distribution in the drill-in fluid while drilling to maximize reservoir protection capacity.
According to Suri and Sharma (Suri, A. and Sharma, M. M. (2004)), Strategies for Sizing Particles in Drilling and Completion Fluids, SPE Journal, March, pp. 13-23, the sized particles used in drilling and completion fluids to minimize formation damage must be large enough to stay at the borehole wall and small enough to form a tight filter cake that effectively prevents the invasion and internal mudcake formation by any solids and polymers in the near wellbore reservoir. Modeling done by the authors based on this criterion demonstrated the usefulness of this criterion for quantitative determination of the particle size distribution necessary to design a drill-in fluids for a given formation permeability and overbalance pressure. According to the authors, the predictions of the model agree well with the results of mud filtration experiments.
According to Vickers et al. (Vickers S., Cowie M., Jones T., Tywnam, A. J. (2006)), a new methodology that surpasses current bridging theories to efficiently seal a varied pore throat distribution as found in natural reservoir formations, AADE 06-DF-HO-16, selection and maintenance of five different particle sizes with respect to the measured pore throat size distribution of the formation core are necessary in order to create a tightly packed mudcake on the borehole wall. This size distribution is required to match separately the different pore throat sizes to produce a “jamming effect” by bridging or filling the fracture openings and inter-particle gaps of all sizes. According to the authors, a particle size such as D90 should be less than the largest pore throat size, D75 should be less than ⅔ of the largest pore throat, D50 should be ±⅓ of the mean pore throat size, D25 should be 1/7 of the mean pore throat size, and D10 should be greater than the smallest pore throat size. Laboratory and field tests demonstrated the effectiveness of this particle size distribution pattern in bridging openings and preventing formation damage compared to other methods of particle size selection. According to the authors this method is equally applicable for both oil-based and water-based muds.
The importance of maintaining the intended particle size distribution during drilling operations highlights the need for a simple, reliable, accurate, and statistically valid method for screening, quality control, and quality assurance of bridging materials used for drill-in fluid formulation.
Variation in the composition of bridging materials is common due to different grinding procedures and equipment used in the process of manufacturing the bridging materials. Due to variations in the composition and manufacturing of bridging materials, there is a wide variation in their structural durability in operation. For example, particle angularity, morphology, raw material quality, internal damage to the fabric and structures of the bridging materials play an important role in the overall behavior of the materials when subject to forces in the downhole environment. Also, there are variations in the sources of physical, chemical, mechanical, and geological characteristics; degree of purity; and level of compliance with manufacturer's quality assurance measures among bridging materials. Because of the wide variation in the mechanical durability of bridging materials in downhole conditions, the identification and selection of highly durable bridging materials is critical in formulating drilling fluids to minimize formation damage while drilling.
One prior art process for quality control and quality assurance of sized bridging materials used in drill-in fluid formulation is disclosed in Applicant's co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/897,910, filed Oct. 5, 2010. That process provides suitable quality control and quality assurance for coarse and medium sized bridging materials; however, the process is limited with respect to quality control and quality assurance for fine sized bridging materials. In addition, the process disclosed above requires significant human interaction to conduct both the sieving and drying processes needed to accurately assess the sized bridging materials. The significant human interaction could negatively effect the results of the process. Still further, these human labor processes add significantly to the length of the quality control and quality assurance process. An improved process capable of overcoming the above described limitations would be desirable.